Hey Steve, We Have Some Thoughts: Pondering iPhone 3-Months +

• Ok, the 800-pound elephant in the room is first: the price drop.  Here's our read.  First, OUCH!  Second, we're buying a new Airport Express with our $100 rebate voucher.  Was this bad PR...maybe in a veiled way.  Apple may have pissed off a lot of people, but now the entire world knows you can buy an 8GB iPhone for $399 and they were able to do it without one paid advertisement!  Brilliant spin or accidental outcome?  Here's what we believe: the iPhone's sales will be very brisk throughout the end of the year.  Anyone on the fence has little reason not to spring for the slickest phone there is.  Sure a $200 rebate voucher would have been better than $100, but it's better than nothing.  Our read on this: the iPhone is a first-gen product and a first-time business for Apple.  We believe they set their initial pricing based on lower sales expectations and set a healthy profit to cover expenses for this new world, should it come caving down on them.  As a result of the massive sales they've had, Apple was able to use their more traditional cost/accounting methods to re-price the product.  The result is a better deal for the rest of us (except us, because already got shafted our phones).  Contrary to most of the tech media, we believe it's was the iPhone's success that created a significant price drop, as well as the streamlining of the product line by dumping the 4GB model. 
  
• Hey, where's my MMS?  Some of you have said there's a few "missing" features in the iPhone.  Missing?  Nawww, that's a feature!  We agree there are a few things we'd like to see in the iPhone, and frankly, MMS is not one of them.  When you have the best multimedia email client on a phone, why pay extra for MMS?  Isn't a message like 60¢?  We're too poor for that (see first item).  What do we want, you ask? Here's a top 10 11 list of features we Savants want for our iPhones:
  
1. Searchable Address Book: when you're looking for Joe What'sHisName within your 574 contacts on your phone, it sure would be nice to search for ol' Joe by first name or anything else that we remember about him.  Even our old Palm has this function.  While you're at it, Apple, make the Calendar app searchable as well.
   
2. Voice Notes: the iPod in the iPhone is fantastico, yet we can't record anything with our iPhone.  This incredibly handy feature would certainly be welcomed.  Lugging the 30GB iPod for this purpose is a bit ridiculous, so we've resorted to the risky proposition of typing notes into notepad while driving!
3. Notes Sync: speaking of notes...why don't they sync?  We blame Windoze.  Certainly, Apple didn't want the Windows users to feel Apple was treating them like 2nd Class Citizens.  Their iPhone experience must be the same to avoid backlash and Apple didn't have time (forgot) to make a notes app for iTunes for Windows.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  I want to take notes, I want them to sync to Stickies or better yet, Yojimbo.  This may be the #1 heard complaint amongst iPhoners.
   
4. Sending Pics: we know, we know, photos can be sent.  Well, make that photo, as in singular photo.  It would be just peachy (appley?) to mark photos for email and send a few at once.  We're not asking for 20, or even 10--perhaps 3 would be adequate?
5. Touch to Inbox: the Mail app seems to have extra steps.  We know why it's structured like it is, yet you would think an alias to the inbox would be available.  It's 3-steps from the home-screen to your inbox.  Why?  Let's make a preference that allows it to be 2-steps.  One less step you say?  It's particularly annoying if you have multiple inboxes and you have to back out two steps, then back into the new inbox (2-steps) you want to see.  Even better: let us set up a smart folder so we can see all of our new mail, regardless of account, in one screen.
6. WAV Files: we here at AppleSavant's parent company love AccessLine.  Our calls are routed all over the place, wherever we are and it's seamless and reliable.  AccessLine has this really excellent feature where it emails you email with a link to your voicemail.  Unfortunately, neither Mail or Safari can play WAV files.  With the proliferation of these sorts of voicemail services and WAV on the net, this is a must have addition to the iPhone.
7. TIFF Files: oh iPhone, how I love thee, yet your parental gnomes failed to remember that most electronic fax documents are sent in the format of TIFF.  Thank you for being able to read Word files and PDF's--this is much appreciated--however, TIFF is still the predominate fax format.  We utilize two services that output in this format and no-mas with the iPhone.
8. Bluetooth Services: one of us has a 3 year old Sony-Ericsson that syncs with the Mac quite well via Bluetooth.  We believe that syncing iTunes with Bluetooth would be like watching paint dry on Teflon.  Although not the fastest protocol, Bluetooth does have some phone-centric features that are really cool--and really unavailable on the iPhone.  MacOSX's address book app has a function where you can have it constantly communicating with your mobile phone, as long as you're in proximity (30 ft, last time we checked).  If you get a text message while the machines are having their little talk, the message will be displayed on your Mac, at which point you can reply with it and your full-sized keyboard.  MacOS supports it as do other Bluetooth phones--iPhone is in a class by itself here.  While we're complaining about Bluetooth, Apple should consider a quick way to turn off Bluetooth as they do with WiFi.  Sometimes it gets in the way and we just want it off!  A few touches through the menu and it's done, but a switch right under the WiFi switch (in Settings) would be lovely. There's more with Bluetooth, like sending vCards with others and turning your iPhone into a really cool remote-control.  Apple, open up Bluetooth, please!
   
9. Third Party Hardware: we haven't heard much on the developer side about hardware for iPhone.  We're not sure if engineers at companies like Griffin and Belkin are able to do much more than power adapters and docks.  Before the iPhone was released, we didn't know how the keyboard would function.  Now that we do, and we do know very well how great it is, some may prefer to use a hardware keyboard.  We imagine hardware keyboards that work with Bluetooth (which has to be opened as outlined in #8) for use on airplanes or in class.  Palm-style fold-up keyboards would be a really nice addition for people that want to write things like massive blog-entries or gDocs manuscripts.  Apple is most likely taking the same, conservative stance on this as they are with software-on-the-phone, which we're not against, contrary to popular rants.  In fact, the Safari-based Web apps we've seen are very impressive and even offer features that couldn't be done on the phone itself.  Still, our guess is that Apple will compartmentalize software in a safe place where it can run without freaking out the rest of the phone.  When that happens, we'll also see related hardware.
10. Quick Return to iPod: a button or series of clicks on something would be a way this could work.  What exactly are we asking for here? Let's say you're playing a podcast, then you're looking at your calendar or surfing the Web.  Someone speaks to you about something (you're not wearing the included headphones...maybe you're in the car or something) and you don't want to miss it.  The steps to stop the iPod playing are long: a) unlock the phone, b) press the home button, c) press iPod, d) press pause.  A double tap on something or a press and hold would be a great way to not miss Leo LaPorte's point to Scott Bourne about whatever on MacBreak Weekly. 
    
11. Scrubbing and Seeking Video:  a top 11 list--how odd.  Well, we are the AppleSavants.  So here's a particularly annoying thing--scrubbing or fast forwarding movies.  After you hold the button for a few seconds, the iPhone goes into what seems to be a 2x play mode.  If you hold the button longer, it begins to skip ahead in 4-sec increments.  This is all fine, but as soon as you let go, it sort of stumbles around and then either ends up in pause mode or reverts back to near where you started.  We'd like to see a 2x and 4x feature, where you don't have to hold the button.  We're not even talking about going backwards, which is really clunky.  We just deal with those annoying PC-Magazine commercials on DL.TV, because fast-forwarding ultimately takes longer than the ad ("can you dig it? Someone tell them to stop using those digitized voice-overs!). 
    

Whew!  Anyone have any Gatorade?  That concludes thoughts on iPhone at 3-Months.  We, of course, will continue to blurt our opinion as we see fit.  Even with some of its shortcomings, there's no substitute for its interface, ease-of-use, integration with iTunes and phone transceiver quality (surprisingly one of the best in the business).   None of us would trade our iPhone for any other phone on the market today.  Apple has really done an excellent job, especially considering this phone was developed with no consumer clinics or public interaction.  They knew exactly what people wanted in a phone--bravo Mr. Jobs and the gang at Apple.